Social media aim for US politicians’ marketing budgets

The US election is 16 months away but presidential candidates are already scrapping for dollars to bulk up their campaign war chests — and social media companies are making a push for a bigger cut of their advertising budgets.

Politicians are set to shell out nearly $1 billion on online ads, six times the $159 million they spent during the last presidential campaign, according to Borrell Associates, a media analytics company. Social media sites will capture $558 million, or nearly 60 percent of that total, up from a third in the 2012 election. Sites including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have built teams to sell political advertising to entice people to donate, participate and eventually vote in the run up to the November 2016 election. Three factors are fuelling the push from social sites: they are increasingly a destination for watching video; they are seen as a key way to reach people on mobile devices; and they offer rich data to target potential voters.